Parking & Eating Near Gare du Nord

Andrea, Why don't you just store your bags at the station, go eat, and then pick up your bags and the car afterwards. It's less hassle.

Terminus Nord is a famous brasserie across the street from the Gare du Nord.

For a more ordinary meal, there are several cafe/restaurants next to each other right across the street, too. A few are geared to the travelers arriving or leaving with pictures of the food, menus in multiple languages, or a barker telling you in English to come on in; a couple have menus in French, maybe English, and no pictures and no barkers.

Thanks for the suggestion Bets. I've only been to Nord once. It was 8 years ago when I took the Eurostar from there to London. I don't remember anything about it. Do they have a left luggage room or lockers?

Googled: The SNCF site says it's one flight down, near the car rentals on the side where you exit to get taxis. BTW, it's automatic lockers.
http://www.gares-en-mouvement.com/fr/frpno/services-en-gare/service/
Or...see if the rental people will let you rent your car, put the luggage in the trunk, but come back for it after lunch--easy on the wine cause you'll have to drive down the garage ramp, or is it up the ramp? The rentals are in a garage, so you'd just be putting it into a garage, or even the same garage, while you have lunch anyway.

Thanks Bets!

Another fairly upmarket place to have lunch near Gare du Nord is Chez Casimir in rue de Belzunce.

It's UP the ramp, Bets. And up and up, around and around till the surface. Not recommended after wine! ;)

I think the best idea, suggested above, is to rent the car, stash the bags in the trunk (coffre), have lunch (no recommendations where), then return sober for the long spiral to the surface. As I recall it's one-way to the right (north) at the top. Ask Ed how to get to Normandy from there!

I don't see why this plan would require an OK from the car rental people, they don't care once you have the keys and the meter starts running.

Change of plan. They were going to charge me an extra €40 to pick the car up at Nord. I don't think so! Now the plan is to pick it up at the Europcar office in the 11th. The address is 88 Rue de la Roquette. I'm told it's 4K from Nord. I don't have a problem with taking the metro or a cab to get there. Does anyone know of a better Europcar location for us to get to? Also we still need to figure out a good meeting place for lunch. Do I dare try to park in the Bastille area? Where would be a good location to arrange to meet?

Andrea, That's the wrong direction. Use the rue de Berri agency, in the 8th, in the right direction for leaving for Normandy, near the Arc. You just go around the circle until you have the right direction to get you out of town fast. Hint: you can go around in a circle as many times as necessary until you figure out the right road to take.

Thanks Bets! I'll check that location out. I still can easily remember the stress I felt 8 years ago when I found myself driving on Charles DeGaulle Circle. This time I'm more familiar with Paris after several trips and I will have a GPS. It doesn't look very easy to get there from Gare du Nord by metro.

Any suggestions for a meeting place in that area?

Bets, I looked on the Europcar website and don't see a place on rue de Berri. The closest I see to the Arc is just west of it at 8 Avenue Foch in the 17th. What do you think of that?

Andrea, I just emailed Darcy as she has been out of town and I am sure did not see your thread. I will go ahead and speak for her and say we are mobile and can meet you anywhere it works easiest for you! After all you are coming all the way from Sacramento just to meet up with us, lol. Lunch IS the only reason for your trip to France, right?

Thanks Pam. I wasn't sure about Darcy's schedule so I emailed her too. When I figure the car thing out I will let you know. When do you guys get to Paris?

And yes, we are going to Paris for lunch, then leaving France right away. Well, right away if you define 3 weeks as right away. ;-)

It's 48 rue de Berri. Try google earth to see it. The 17th would be better too. You just don't want to go back over next to the Gare de Lyon to pick up a car when you're driving west out of town. Also check Porte Maillot. It's very easy to get on the road to Normandy from there. See if Ed comes along to give you directions.

I'm back! Andrea, as Pam said, just figure out which is the easiest Europcar location for you to leave for Normandy and we can meet you there. Or wherever you think it would be best to meet.
Just like you, the only reason I'm going to Paris is to meet for our lunch.

Hi Darcy! Thanks for coming to Paris for lunch!

This seemed so much easier when I thought we would just pick our car up at Nord and drive off.

Now I'm weighing 2 different options -

1. Take the metro or a taxi to a city office to get the car, have lunch near there, then drive to Bayeux.

2. Take the metro to Gare St. Lazare, have lunch, train to Caen to pick up the car, drive to Bayeux.

The cost of 2 train tickets Paris-Caen and the cost of fuel & tolls from Paris-Caen are about the same.

I have not yet verified if there is an extra charge to pick up the car at the Caen train station.

We are traveling from London with friends. They have already purchased train tickets from Paris-Bayeux. We will meet them there. They are taking the train because they assumed there wouldn't be room in our car for 4 adults and our luggage. If we take the train, even if we don't take the same one, we can help them get to Gare St. Lazare. This will be their first time in France.

Darcy & Pam - How much time do you have for lunch? If we take the train we need to figure out which one. We get into Gare du Nord at 11:47. There is a 14:08 train and a 15:08 train. I don't want to take up your whole afternoon, but I'm recalling how long our lunch was when we met up before Darcy. It wasn't a short lunch!! ;-) The 14:08 train is €14 less (total) than the 15:08, but it's not that big a deal if we pay the extra to have more time.

Opinions? Advice?

such problems you have with your schedule, Andrea. ;))))

Hi Andrea,
I haven't heard back from Pam yet but since you arrive at gare du Nord at 11:47, need to get over to gare St Lazare, stash your bags, then hunt us down, I'd definitely say the 15:08! I-yi-yi! Rick says on page 570, Paris book that St Lazare doesn't have baggage check! Quel dilemma! What to do with your bags?

OK, I'm here. I think that was the day we were going to try to do St Sulpice and St Denis? So nothing pressing, no tickets, no times. I would say give yourselves the most amount of time unless you need to be to Caen by a certain time.

Never mind about the train idea. I would still have to pay the €40 charge to pick the car up at the train station in Caen. If I change to the other car company that I could use I would avoid that €40 in Caen (though not in Paris), but I would have to pay an extra €65 charge to drop the car in Avignon.

Darcy & Pam, maybe we should store our bags at Nord and meet there, then go to a city location that would be easy to drive out of town to Normandy. I definitely know I will not be driving all over Paris!

I will figure this out. I think...

Pam, it looks like we posted at the same time. Hopefully I will figure this out soon, so I can move on to something else.

We need to be in Bayeux before 7:00 to check into our hotel. I don't want to wait until the last minute, just in case we run into traffic.